BFFN: Best Friends For Now?

If GE chairman "Jeff Immelt's fingerprints [are] all over" a supposed deal to beef up Keith Olbermann's contract while letting Chris Matthew's ride out his agreement until it expires next year, than Jeff Zucker's fingerprints are all over the Page Six item saying it's so.

Zucker, the NBC chief and notorious New York Post leaker, has much to gain from the item, which fingers a Immelt-Olbermann coup that put David Gregory in the anchor chair while demoting Olbermann and Matthews, but leaving only Matthews with nothing to show for it. The Z Man wants to distance himself publicly from the Phil Griffin-sponsored in-fighting at MSNBC, and by assigning blame to his boss Immelt, Zucker shows shareholders that any possible dissolution of NBC Universal from GE — the endless will-they-or-won't-they scenario — would be entirely on Immelt, leaving the GE head open to criticism while Zucker can play innocent, and wise, bystander.

Lending more evidence that it's Zucker feeding this info? This, from the P6 item: "One knowledgeable source told us: 'Shareholders were calling up NBC and GE - a lot, maybe thousands. They were saying, 'What the [bleep] is wrong with these guys?' . . . Chris Matthews just got stuck in the middle of it all.'" Funny, because that's the sort of thing Zucker would know about, and be able to enthusiastically exaggerate.

And if this isn't a Zucker-led plant? Well then Z is either kicking up his feet and while others do his dirty work, or he better start convincing Immelt & Co. that he's not behind the bus throwing.